Dosas: A New Way with Lentils and Rice

I came across this recipe in one of my cookbooks while looking for a new and interesting way to prepare lentils and rice.  This recipe is from the book, Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods. We had these for dinner, buttered and then rolled up and eaten alongside big steaming bowls of homemade spicy chili 😀

First take 2 cups brown rice and 1 cup lentils, mix together and soak in non-chlorinated water for 24 hours in a warm place.  I like to use the oven with just the oven light on, it stays about 80 degrees in there.

after soaking for 24 hours there will be bubbles and foam on the surface of the water, when this happens you know that germination has ocurred

Drain the soaking water from the lentils and rice and run it through the food processor along with 1 cup of yogurt…don’t make it too thin, it should be thick, barely pourable. Let sit again in a warm place and ferment for 24 hours, make sure it is in a BIG bowl because the batter will expand greatly.

After it has fermented for 24 hours (no longer than that, any longer and the batter begins to take on a sour taste) you are now ready to make dosas. Add some water to thin the batter, you want it to very thin like crepe batter. Add about 1 tsp. moist grey sea salt. I also added some finely minced garlic, ginger and cilantro and parsley from the garden (yes they still live! I told you that we’ve had a very mild winter..)

the finished batter

Then heat a well seasoned frying pan with oil, I like to use a cast iron griddle and lotsa butter. Use a ladle to pour the batter and then use the bottom of the ladle to smooth the batter out from the center to the edges as you pour. Cook like a pancake, flipping once bubbles appear on the surface and it starts to look dry.

dosa frying

a stack of dosas, leftovers are really good reheated (NOT in the microwave) and used like a tortilla...especially for breakfast with scrambled eggs cheese and hot sauce to make a "breakfast burrito"